Truth-Stained Lies: Moonlighter, Book 1

Cathy Cramer is a former lawyer and investigative blogger who writes commentary on local homicides. When she finds a threatening note warning her that she’s about to experience the same kind of judgment and speculation that she dishes out in her blog, Cathy writes it off as mischief…until her brother is caught in the middle of a murder investigation - the victim is his ex-wife. As her brother is tried and convicted in the media, and bloggers have a field day, Cathy wonders if she should have taken the threat more seriously.

If I Run

Casey Cox's DNA is all over the crime scene. There's no use talking to police; they have failed her abysmally before. She has to flee before she's arrested...or worse. The truth doesn't matter anymore. But what is the truth? That's the question haunting Dylan Roberts, the war-weary veteran hired to find Casey. PTSD has marked him damaged goods, but bringing Casey back can redeem him. Though the crime scene seems to tell the whole story, details of the murder aren't adding up.

Tangled Webs: Men of Valor, Book 3

After a disastrous Middle East mission ends his six-year Army Ranger career, Finn McGregor needs some downtime. A peaceful month in the woods sounds like the perfect way to decompress. But peace isn't on the agenda once he crosses paths with publishing executive Dana Lewis, a neighbor who is nursing wounds of her own. Someone seems bent on disrupting her stay in the lakeside cabin she inherited from her grandfather. As Finn and Dana work together to discover who is behind the disquieting pranks, the incidents begin to take on a menacing tone.

Traces of Guilt

Evie Blackwell loves her life as an Illinois state police detective...mostly. She's very skilled at investigations and has steadily moved up through the ranks. She would like to find Mr. Right, but she has a hard time imagining how marriage could work, considering the demands of her job.

Intervention

Barbara Covington has one more chance to save her daughter from a devastating addiction: staging an intervention. But when 18-year-old Emily disappears on the way to drug treatment and her interventionist is found dead at the airport where she was last seen, Barbara enters her darkest nightmare of all.

In this collection of gripping novellas from the top authors of Christian romantic suspense, sins of the past lead to danger in the present. In Dee Henderson's "Missing", a Wyoming sheriff is called to Chicago when his elderly mother goes missing. Paired with a savvy Chicago cop, the two realize her disappearance is no accident, and a race against the clock begins. Dani Pettrey returns to Alaska with "Shadowed", introducing listeners to the parents of her beloved McKenna clan....

Last Light: Restoration, Book 1

In the face of a crisis that sweeps an entire high-tech planet back to the age before electricity, Deni Branning's career ambitions have vanished. She's not about to let her dream of marriage go as well. But keeping it alive will require extraordinary measures. Yesterday's world is gone. All Deni and her family have left is each other and their neighbors. Their little community will either stand or fall together. But they're only beginning to realize that, and trust doesn't come easily.

Without Warning: Elite Guardians, Book 2

Katie Singleton, a partner with the Elite Guardians Protection Agency, stumbles upon her next assignment quite by accident. Spotting blue lights at a familiar restaurant, she stops to investigate, only to discover that owner Daniel Matthews has become the target of someone who will go to any lengths to put him out of business. Daniel might be concerned, but he's not convinced that a bodyguard - and a female one at that - is necessary. A new attack and his niece's urgings are enough to make him reconsider.

Deadly Encounter: FBI Task Force, Book 1

Airport Ranger volunteer Stacy Broussard expected a peaceful Saturday morning ride around the perimeter of Houston's airport. What she encounters instead is a brutal homicide and a baffling mystery. Next to the body is an injured dog, the dead man's motorcycle, and a drone armed with a laser capable of taking down a 747. Though FBI Special Agent Alex LeBlanc sees a clear-cut case of terrorism, his past has taught him to be suspicious of everyone, even witnesses. Even bleeding-heart veterinarians like Stacy.

Cold Shot: Chesapeake Valor, Book 1

In college, Griffin McCray and his four best friends had their lives planned out. Griffin and Luke Gallagher would join the Baltimore PD. Declan Gray would head to the FBI, and Parker Mitchell would go on to graduate school as a crime scene analyst. But then Luke vanished before graduation, and their world - and friendships - crumbled. Now Griffin is a park ranger at Gettysburg, having left life as a SWAT-team sniper when a case went bad.

Double Minds

Struggling to succeed in the Nashville music scene, talented singer/songwriter Parker James finds the competition fierce...even deadly. A young womans murder, industry corruption, and a menacing stalker draw Parker into danger and intrigue. Nothing is as it appears, and unraveling the truth challenges everything Parker believes about her talent, her future, and her faith.

Taken

Abducted at the age of sixteen and coerced into assisting the Jacoby crime family, Shannon Bliss has finally found a way out. She desperately wants to resume some semblance of normal life, but she also knows she has some unfinished business to attend to. She has enough evidence to put her captors behind bars for a very long time.

Emerald Windows

Brooke Martin and Nick Marcello, falsely implicated 10 years ago in a scandal that cost Nick his teaching job, meet again for the first time since then to redesign the stained-glass windows in a historic church - and the rumors start all over again, this time also including Brooke’s kid sister, Roxy.

Vanished: Private Justice, Book 1

Vanished, the first book in the Private Justice series, follows reporter Moira Harrisons, who strikes a pedestrian while driving late one night on a wooded road. Dazed from the crash, Moira sees a second man appear at her window and assure her everything will be all right - but then she passes out. When Moira wakes, both men are gone, and a mystery awaits.

Too Close to Home: Women of Justice, Book 1

When missing teens begin turning up dead in a small Southern town, the FBI sends in Special Agent Samantha Cash to help crack the case. Her methods are invisible, and she never quits until the case is closed.

Buried Secrets

After seven years as a Chicago homicide detective, Lisa Grant has hit a wall. Ready for a kinder, gentler life, she takes a job as a small-town police chief. But the discovery of a human skeleton by a construction crew at the edge of town taxes the resources of her department.

No One to Trust: Hidden Identity, Book 1

Summer Abernathy wakes up one morning to find her husband missing, three men in her home intent on finding him, and the life she's been living based on a lie. Which Kyle Abernathy did she marry? The computer programmer she met in line at the bank? Or the one who was apparently using that image as a cover story? The search for her husband - and answers - takes Summer ever deeper into a world of organized crime, where people are used one moment and discarded the next.

Firewall: FBI: Houston

After a whirlwind romance, Taryn Young is preparing to board a plane at Houston International Airport, bound for a dream honeymoon, when a bomb decimates the terminal. Injured but still alive, she awakens to discover her husband is missing, and they're both considered prime suspects in the attack. Further, the FBI is convinced her husband isn't who he appears to be. Agent Grayson Hall's number-one priority is to catch those responsible for the day's act of terror.

Seasons Under Heaven

What does a child's life-threatening illness cost the neighbors of Cedar Circle? What joys can be hidden in life's greatest tragedies? Behind brightly lit windows and on front porches, marriages are tested and mended, hearts broken, hopes resurrected, dreams released and reformed, values and futures shaped, and faith rekindled . . . or found for the first time.

Always Watching: Elite Guardians Series #1

The bodyguards of Elite Guardians Agency have more than just skill and prowess in common; they're also all women. When it becomes clear that popular psychiatrist and radio personality Wade Savage has a stalker, his father secretly hires Elite Guardians in order to protect his son. But when Wade's bodyguard is attacked and nearly killed, agency owner Olivia Edwards must step in and fill the gap.

Submerged: Alaskan Courage, Book 1

When her aunt dies in a mysterious plane crash, Professor Bailey Craig returns to Yancey, Alaska. She soon learns that her expertise is desperately needed in the investigation of a string of local murders—so she works with her ex, Cole McKenna, to ferret out the truth. As they become reacquainted, old feelings rekindle—but do Bailey and Cole have a future together?

Publisher's Summary

A dark shadow of fear has fallen over Newpointe, Louisiana. First one, then another of the town firemen's wives has been murdered, and a third has barely escaped an attempt on her life. Incredible as it seems, a serial killer is stalking this sleepy little southern community. And Mark Branning's wife may be next on the list.

Mark is determined to protect her. But keeping Allie alive won't be easy - not with their own marriage already dying a bitter death. Unless they renew their commitment to each other and to God, someone else may settle their problems. Permanently. And time to decide is running out.

Private Justice is book one in the Newpointe 911 mystery series by award-winning novelist Terri Blackstock. Newpointe 911 offers taut, superbly crafted novels of faith, fear, and close-knit, small-town relationships, seasoned with romance and tempered by insights into the nature of relationships, redemption, and the human heart.

I first read this book about 8 years ago when I received the series as a gift from my mother. Terri Blackstock is an excellent writer and, being from a small town in Louisiana myself, does a great job capturing the dynamics and traditions of living in that area of the country. The problem with the audiobook rests solely on the back of the terrible narrator. I don't know where the producers found this guy, but he has obviously done no research whatsoever. He mispronounces a lot of the names and his "Cajun" accent is absolutely atrocious. I work in theatre and when actors do a play or movie that involves speaking in a particular dialect, it takes days of research and rehearsal to make sure they are representing it correctly. Clearly, that was not the case here since whoever this man is he equates Cajun with French. It would have been better if he'd done no accent at all instead of the distorted French accent. He made listening to a great story cringe-worthy. It's a shame that producers don't require more effort and knowledge from their narrators.

The description should have been "religious mystery". The constant theme is religion. There are preaching, quoting of biblical passages, and Christian guilt throughout. I'm a Christian, and there was great wisdom is some of the lessons in this book. However, when choosing a book for entertainment, I'm not looking for a sermon. The strong religious theme simply needed to be mentioned in the description, just as a Western or Spy Novel theme would have.

Has Private Justice turned you off from other books in this genre?

I will look out for and avoid any books by Terri Blackstock since I haven't found a "genre" that indicates the religious theme I found in her mystery

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Aggravation and disappointment. I had expected to be entertained on a 7 hour drive, and instead was bored and aggravated.